Mel Watt, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, outlined a broad shift in housing-finance policy during a speech at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday. The FHFA has extensive authority over the mortgage market because it controls loan giantsFannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which currently back around two in three new mortgages.

Here’s a look at key policy issues Mr. Watt discussed in his first public speech since he was installed as the agency’s director in January:

NO COMMENT ON LEGISLATION: Bipartisan legislation in the Senate to overhaul Fannie and Freddi appears likely to stall after clearing a vote in the banking committee this week. Mr. Watt said any long-term overhaul wasn’t on his radar. “My guess is that there were many people who expected that I would start talking about reform legislation the minute I got to FHFA,” he said.

The government’s control of the companies through conservatorship “should never be viewed as permanent or as a desirable end-state and that housing finance reform is necessary,” he said. “However, Congress and the [Obama] administration have the important job of deciding on housing finance reform legislation, not FHFA.”

NO CHANGES ON LOAN LIMITS: The agency won’t go ahead with plans floated last fall to reduce the maximum loan amounts that are eligible for purchase by Fannie and Freddie, Mr. Watt said, citing concerns that the changes might hurt a fragile housing recovery. Currently, Fannie and Freddie will buy loans as large as $417,000 in most markets and as large as $625,500 in certain “high-cost” markets including New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

ENCOURAGING BROADER CREDIT ACCESS: Policymakers and lenders have said banks are making credit standards tighter than they’d otherwise be due to broad authorities by Fannie and Freddie to “put back” defaulted loans to the mortgage giants. The companies on Monday announced a series of steps designed to give lenders more certainty about when they would and wouldn’t face put-backs, which have cost lenders billions of dollars after the housing bust.

“Lenders believe that too much uncertainty still exists in this area for them to ease their credit overlays,” Mr. Watt said.

NEIGHBORHOOD STABILIZATION PILOT PROGRAM: The FHFA will launch a pilot project in Detroit to help stabilize communities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. The program will include more aggressive loan modifications and partnerships with nonprofits to purchase vacant properties and to rehabilitate other foreclosures controlled by Fannie and Freddie. “FHFA expects to use the experiences in Detroit to expand this initiative to other parts of the country,” Mr. Watt said.

OFFLOADING MORTGAGE-CREDIT RISK: Rather than focus on contracting the footprint of Fannie and Freddie, which was a top goal of the agency before he arrived in January, Mr. Watt said the companies would now focus on reducing taxpayer risk without necessarily shrinking the companies’ size. One way that could be accomplished, he said, would be to accelerate sales of certain securities that allow investors to buy non-guaranteed portions of mortgage bonds. Mr. Watt directed the companies to triple to $90 billion sales of those derivatives this year.

MOVING FANNIE AND FREDDIE TO A SINGLE SECURITY: The FHFA last year established a separate company, jointly owned by Fannie and Freddie, to build a common platform for mortgage securitization that could ultimately be used by the rest of the industry. Mr. Watt said the platform’s original, broad mandate would be scrapped, and that it would be refocused more narrowly towards improving the operations of Fannie and Freddie.

Mr. Watt said he would use the initiative to move Fannie and Freddie toward sharing a single security. Currently, the companies issue separate securities, and Freddie has been forced to provide concessions to lenders that cost hundreds of millions of dollars because its security is less liquid than Fannie’s.

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